The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-05-05

say entitled, ''In the matter of Shakespeare"
says: Hugo now and again wallows and found
ers like whale in shallow water; Goethe struts.
scowis. smiles and laughs in turn, and always
with the air of feeling his superiority; but
Shakespeare steadfast. liberalfaced, never
surprised by his own wit, and never IN need OF
extrinsic aid"
1t is only fair to remember that Goethe and
Hugo are of our own time, the latter but recent
ly dead, and men yet living who spoke with
Goethe. Carlyle. who introduced him TO the
English world, visited Goethe and discussed with
him the problems of Faust and Meister. Their
lives are open 10 US. as no contemporaries OF
Shakespeare, not even Bacon, who never men
tons him, could be made manifest in those
times resurrected The present is
century in which nothing is hidden that goes on.
Besides, Goethe and Hugo concerned themselves
with the institutions. the courts and politics of
their times. And Emerson SAYS that it was not
possible to write the history of Shakespeare till
IL was not till the ESSAYS of Leasing and the
TRANSACTIONS of Wieland Schlegel that the rapid
burst OF German literature occurred.
And not until this century. which has such q
miscellany of facts and knowledge none be-
fore IT, when there poets, but scores of
poetic writers; no prophet or saint. but schools
dreds OF learned societies: cheap books, and pa
pers, and libraries and reading rooms; time
when everyone IS lnouiring. critical and skep-
tica not until this century" says Emerson
whose speculative genius is sort of living
Hamlet, could the tragedy of Hamlet find such
wondering, readers Now. literature, phios-
Lowell gives Goethe the credit of writing his
Faust in its earliest form without a thought of
the deeper meaning which the exposition of an age
of criticism like the present, when Faust classes
in every city spend a winter in the study of it,
was to find in 1t; Goethe did not know in short
that in ''Mephstopheles" he had impersonated
the genius OF his century. Certainly it is easy
enough to act and to fancy into Hamlet things
Shakespeare did not intend when he wrote the
play, and he and half dozen of his fellow act
ors, presented it to a few score men in the Lon
don theater But, if with the great actors to
''interpreL" it to US, thousands see in Ham
let how the noblest gifts of person. intellect and
temperament ''slip like sand through the grasp
of an infrm purpose" that he was not insane,
rot mere metaphysical and pathological
entity, but a of flesh and blood like
the rest of US, subject temptation
and defeat if we give way to any vice of charac-
ter, inherited or induced, it is certainly COM
pment to the times in which we live 1t is an
evidence that the world is progressing when
wish to see our weaknesses and vices dealized
in grander figures and more awful results even
such Shakespeare draws in 'Othello" Lear"
Macbeth" and Hamlet" or which Goethe with
habitual reference to interior truth portrays
when Mephistophe les-intellect subservient to
sensuaty-is allowed to dominate us.
It should never be forgotten that the actors
are nothing in the case; they only bring it before
the preachers read the Bible, or as the
judge expounds the law There was first the
law and the Bible: so there was the Teutonic
myth and the Danish saga made eternal in
Goethes Faust" and the Hamlet" of Shak-
snp